The present invention relates to a furnace register humidifier of a type adapted to be inserted into a floor opening.
The majority of residential buildings having forced air heating employ floor registers supported by the floor area around the opening for the registers. Humidifiers for such a system either have to be installed in the furnace duct, complete with a water line and an electronic control system to control both the rate of water evaporation and the amount of water in the system or, alternatively, a separate self-contained humidifier operating from a single location must be used. The latter units are generally noisy, take up space and include a relatively unreliable assembly of moving parts.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,161,001, issued to Bedol on June 6, 1939 discloses an alternative to a separate motor driven humidifier. The Bedol device includes a shield adapted to be fitted over a floor register and shaped to deflect the upwardly rising air through an approximate 90.degree. angle past a liquid receptacle within the shield. Although vapour from the liquid enters the air stream, since only the surface of the liquid contacts the air, the rate at which vapour enters the air stream is relatively low. Moreover, the obtrusiveness of the shield into a room presents a serious disadvantage.
An alternative humidifier for use in combination with the register of a hot air furnace is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,227,064, issued on Jan. 6, 1966 to Spangle.
Spangle discloses a grille unit for use with a register in a vertical wall, having a liquid trough along its base and a plurality of spaced apart water-absorbing strips, the bottoms of which are immersed in the water of the trough. Air flowing by the water saturated strips becomes humidified before exiting therefrom into a room. However, only the air which actually contacts one of the strips in passing through the grille is effective in vapourizing the water. Moreover, the construction of the Spangle grille does not extend itself readily to a grille unit for use with a floor register.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,673,770, issued July 4, 1972 to Novak discloses a humidifier attachment for a vertical wall register consisting of a water filled box with hooks to hang the box immediately below the register and artificial plants having a wick-like rear surface immersed in the box to put moisture into the air.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,174, issued Oct. 7, 1980 to Vesper, discloses another type of vertical wall register humidifier similar to the Spangle humidifier.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,307,656, issued Dec. 29, 1981 to Vesper, discloses a humidifier for use in combination with a floor register which utilizes a deflector for deflecting upwardly rising air through a plurality of vertically spaced apart evaporation plates. The Vesper device aforesaid is adapted to be located atop the floor register and therefore represents an unsightly, obtrusive mechanism.